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Resilience Resources Moderate the Association of Adverse Childhood Experiences with Adulthood Inflammation

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Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Background

Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACE) has been associated with elevated circulating inflammatory markers in adulthood. Despite the robust effect of ACE on later health outcomes, not all individuals exposed to ACE suffer from poor health.

Purpose

The goal of this study was to evaluate whether current resilience resources may attenuate the impact of ACE on inflammatory markers among individuals with elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) levels.

Methods

Participants (N = 174) completed one-time self-report questionnaires assessing ACE exposure within the first 18 years of life and current resilience resources, and provided blood samples for interleukin-6 (IL-6) and CRP.

Results

Individuals who were exposed to multiple ACE had greater IL-6 than participants with lesser ACE exposure. However, current resilience resources significantly moderated this effect. Among individuals who reported multiple ACE, higher resilience resources were associated with lower IL-6 levels.

Conclusion

These data suggest that resilience resources might attenuate the association between ACE and later health outcomes.

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Acknowledgements

This project was supported by NIH grants R21AT003670 from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, UL1TR001070, from the National Center For Advancing Translational Sciences (Malarkey), and the Canada Research Chair Secretariat (Gouin).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

    Jean-Philippe Gouin PhD, Warren Caldwell MSc & Robbie Woods MSc

  2. PERFORM Center, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, PY 170-14, Montreal, QC, H4B 1R6, Canada

    Jean-Philippe Gouin PhD

  3. Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research, Department of Internal Medicine, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA

    William B. Malarkey MD

  4. Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA

    William B. Malarkey MD

Authors
  1. Jean-Philippe Gouin PhD
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  2. Warren Caldwell MSc
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  3. Robbie Woods MSc
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  4. William B. Malarkey MD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jean-Philippe Gouin PhD.

Ethics declarations

Authors Gouin, Caldwell, Woods, and Malarkey declare that they have no conflict of interest. All procedures, including the informed consent process, were conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000.

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Gouin, JP., Caldwell, W., Woods, R. et al. Resilience Resources Moderate the Association of Adverse Childhood Experiences with Adulthood Inflammation. ann. behav. med. 51, 782–786 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-017-9891-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-017-9891-3

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